Author's Note: Don't ask questions. XD Inexplicable AUs are above scrutiny. XD

WINDOW, TREE

Light's visiting, so she's being extra-quiet. Her brother has always been too damn observant, and the last thing she needs is him sticking his big nose into thi—

The board in the hall—the one she "accidentally" spilled water four times on so that it would warp enough to creak—groans under someone's cautious weight, and she pushes the mirror aside, snatches up the magazine on her desk, and tilts her chair back, flipping a glossy page just as the door opens.

Light leans against the doorframe and folds his arms across his chest, looking terribly pleased with himself.

"Is it Matsuda?" he asks.

Damn him!

She scowls. "Lucky guess," she decides.

"Well," Light remarks absently, raising an expostulatory hand, "it had to be someone—a shower of twice the normal length, precluding my being able to view my reflection in the mirror for the steam, plus you with your eyeliner half-done, can't mean anything else—and if it was someone you were allowed to be with, Mom and Dad would know, and you wouldn't be sneaking out at midnight." He looks at her, slightly curiously. "How are you managing it, by the way? They would have mentioned it if they were suspicious."

Sayu puts the magazine down, raises an eyebrow, and points. "Window," she says, "tree. You're pretty smart; maybe you can figure out how to put them together."

Light grins. "You've got it easy," he tells her. "My window opens out onto nothing but cement. I had to disable the house alarm and undo all the locks if I wanted to skulk out for midnight trysts with questionable partners."

Sayu wrinkles her nose, crosses her own arms, and raises her chin. "Matsuda is not questionable," she retorts, defiantly. "I like him, and he likes me."

"Dad'll be pissed," Light reports, as if that isn't the whole point of the secrecy.

"He wasn't pissed at you," she shoots back.

"Why would he ever be angry at his model son?" Light inquires, blinking innocently.

"L is seven years older than you," she announces, "and a guy."

Light's grin is absolutely wicked now. "Matsuda's eleven years older than you," he returns, "and a guy."

She gives him a venomous look, which he ignores, and picks up her egg-shaped box of earrings to sort through it. "Dad's mostly just against it because he doesn't want me dating a cop," she informs him, as if Light doesn't already know that, too.

Light clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "Being with a cop is dangerous," he replies. "Mom worries about Dad all the time. You remember the Kira case."

"He let you become a cop," she points out.

Light sighs like a saint maligned. "I'm not a cop," he corrects, "I'm a detective."

"Apparently you should've gone into semantics," she mutters.

"There's still time. I could go back to school."

"If things get serious," she cuts in, righting the mirror and guiding her earring into place, "I'll convince Touta to get a desk job instead, and then Dad'll have to shut up about it."

"'Touta,' eh?" Light snickers.

She sends him another withering glance, but he persists in blithely disregarding the very obvious message.

"Is there some reason you think I shouldn't go out with him?" she demands. "Or did you just come here to gloat?"

"Well," Light remarks, "you should be careful with all this midnight-and-later business, since Dad's bound to notice if Matsuda starts falling asleep at work every day, rather than just after getting wasted with Yamamoto."

Before she can protest, he's raised the Pedantic Index Finger of Doom to silence her.

"However," he continues, "I think that, in general, you should go ahead. Matsuda's an idiot sometimes, but his heart's in the right place."

Sayu stares at him for a moment.

"In his chest," Light specifies. "Never date anybody whose organs aren't on the inside."

There we go.

"Matsu's are all where they ought to be," Sayu informs him primly, pointedly refusing to react to the innuendo into which she has walked.

"Good," Light decides. "Date away."

"I will," Sayu sniffs.

Light smiles and turns to go, then pauses.

"One more thing," he says, retrieving from his pocket a small, silver, rectangular device that looks an awful lot like…

"I recorded this conversation," Light explains, not bothering to contain his evil glee. "So think twice if you ever feel inclined to get me in trouble with Mom and Dad."

The little…!

"Bastard!" Sayu snarls.

Light saunters down the hall, voice trailing towards her over his shoulder.

"Sneaking out at midnight and slandering your parents? Sayu, Sayu… What are we going to do with you?"

Sayu hunkers down in her desk chair and flicks her eyeliner pencil. It rolls across the desktop, and she sighs.

But then she thinks of Matsuda, straightens, and picks it up again.

She'll be revenged on Light one of these days.

…maybe she'll get L to help.